It won’t come as much of a surprise to you that chipmunks love eating all kinds of nuts including walnuts, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, and peanuts. But can chipmunks eat butter? Yes, they can! In fact, chipmunks love peanut butter!
Part of this reason is that they find the taste of peanut butter absolutely irresistible. But, did you know that peanut butter is full of nutrients that help keep chipmunks healthy?!
Below, we’ll take a closer look at the benefits chipmunks get from eating peanut butter. We’ll also explore some of the potential hazards, and look at how you can use peanut butter to attract wild chipmunks to your garden.
The Benefits of Feeding Peanut Butter to Your Chipmunk
If you’ve got a pet chipmunk, giving them the occasional scoop of peanut butter is a great idea. This is because it’s packed with several vitamins and minerals that can help to maintain and even improve your chipmunk’s health.
The first of these is protein. Peanut butter is really high in protein, and this helps keep your chipmunk’s muscles strong. It does this by feeding the muscles so, after a busy day of scurrying around, your chipmunk’s muscles are able to recover and grow stronger.
It’s for this reason that incorporating peanut butter into a young chipmunk’s diet is an especially good idea.
Peanuts are also rich in Vitamin E and since all good peanut butters are made purely from peanuts, peanut butter is rich in Vitamin E too! But what do chipmunks need Vitamin E for? Well, it helps protect against free radicals and oxidative stress.
Free radicals are molecules that damage cells and cause disease. Oxidative stress happens when there’s too much free radical activity in our bodies. So, eating foods that are high in vitamin E (such as peanut butter) helps reduce the number of free radicals in your chipmunk’s body.
Finally, peanut butter is also loaded with fiber, which will help to keep your chipmunk’s digestive system running smoothly. Fiber is important for keeping your gut bacteria happy, so it’s good to feed your chipmunk plenty of fiber-rich food.
The Dangers of Feeding Peanut Butter to Your Chipmunk
So far so good, right? But, if you do want to give your chipmunk peanut butter, then you should be aware of its dangers as well as its benefits.
The main danger in feeding peanut butter to a chipmunk comes from the salt content. Salt is bad for your chipmunk’s kidneys. And if your chipmunk already has kidney problems as diagnosed by a veterinarian, then feeding him or her salty food could make things worse.
Another problem with peanut butter is that it contains a lot of fat. The more fat you have in your chipmunk’s diet, the higher the risk of obesity. Obesity can lead to other serious medical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
So, if you’re worried about your chipmunk getting obese (or if they are already a little overweight) then you shouldn’t feed them peanut butter. Instead, try feeding it something like sunflower seeds, almonds, or pumpkin seeds. These are healthier alternatives to peanut butter.
If you still want to give your chipmunks peanut butter, then you’re going to need to limit how often they eat it. Because peanut butter is high in calories, you should only give your chipmunk small amounts of peanut butter every few days.
This way, they won’t get too fat but you’ll be helping him stay healthy. It’s a win-win situation!
What About Other Nut Spreads?
Peanut butter isn’t the only type of nut spread that it’s safe to feed to a chipmunk. In fact, there are lots of different types of nut spread on the market today that your chipmunk will love snacking on and that have a similar nutrient profile to peanut butter. Some of these include:
• Almond butter
• Hazelnut butter
• Cashew butter
• Pistachio butter
• Sunflower seed butter
• Pumpkin seed butter
So, if you don’t want to use peanut butter, then you can always go for one of these alternative nut spreads instead. They’re just as nutritious and healthy for your chipmunk as peanut butter and, in some cases, will have a lower caloric value.
How to Use Peanut Butter to Attract Wild Chipmunks
Peanut butter is a fantastic food for attracting wild chipmunks to your garden. It’s pretty easy to do as well.
One way to do it is to put a large spoonful of peanut butter into a dish and leave it in a place that a chipmunk can easily access.
You can also smear some peanut butter on another snack that a chipmunk would find enticing. This could be an apple, strawberries, celery, or cucumber. This is an excellent way of increasing your chance of attracting chipmunks, too.
You can increase your chances even further by putting some peanut butter or peanut butter-covered snacks in your garden during fall. At this time of year, wild chipmunks will be actively searching for food while their natural sources (such as insects and wild berries) start to deplete.
Once they’ve found the offering you’ve laid out for them, they’re almost guaranteed to come back time and time again to fill up their underground winter food stores!
Alongside peanut butter and other tasty snacks, if you want to attract chipmunks to your yard, then you should also plant at least two kinds of plants in your garden. One kind of plant should be fruit trees and the other kind of plant should be vegetables.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are many reasons why you should consider giving your chipmunk peanuts or peanut butter. Not only does this help keep your pet chipmunk healthy, but it helps increase the chances of survival for wild chipmunks hibernating over the winter.
Happy Feeding!
